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jueves, 26 de noviembre de 2009

NewsWeek
Andrew Romano
There are four kinds of candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Politicians like Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Tim Pawlenty belong in the sure-thing category; we know they'll be running because, well, they already are. Next come the wild cards: the headliners who haven't decided on anything yet ... except to keep their options open. Think Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. Finally there are the long shots. Until now, I would've stocked the long-shot pool with gents like Bobby Jindal, John Thune, and Haley Barbour—prominent Republicans who occasionally inspire 2012 speculation but stand little chance of actually getting (or, for that matter, trying to get) the nod next time around.
But late last week, Republican antitax activist Grover Norquist—a guy who, love him or hate him, is still pretty plugged into GOP power sources in Washington—stopped by the NEWSWEEK offices and dropped a name I'd never even heard before, let alone heard in the context of 2012: Luis Fortuño.
I can imagine your reaction: "Um, who's that?" Or as Fortuño might put it, "Este, quién es ese?" Allow me, then, to introduce you. Fortuño is the governor of Puerto Rico, which, as you may have learned in fifth-grade social-studies class, is a United States commonwealth located to the east of the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Sea. Yes, Fortuño is a U.S. citizen. And, yes, he is a true-blue, Reagan- and National Review-loving member of the GOP—despite the liberal leanings of his native island, where "Republican" typically means pro-statehood rather than conservative. So while Fortuño can't vote in a U.S. presidential election, he can, in fact, run as a Republican in one. "He could pop up on the national level like that," said Norquist, snapping his fingers. "I’m very impressed with both his presentation and what he’s accomplished so far."
Why is Norquist so fond of this unfamiliar face? For starters, Fortuño has proven to be a rather bold fiscal leader since assuming office last January. After discovering that Puerto Rico's deficit was four times greater than what he'd previously been told—at more than $3.2 billion, it's the highest per capita in the nation—he outlined a plan in March to cut spending by $2 billion per year and slash government payrolls by tens of thousands of workers. (In Puerto Rico, the government employs 30 percent of the workforce; another 30 percent rely on government contracts.) The idea was to chart a new economic future for the cash-strapped commonwealth by focusing on private-sector job creation—and so far, the plan is on track. Despite labor protests, Fortuño has trimmed approximately 20,000 government positions and, with the help of $6.5 billion in combined federal and local stimulus funds, has managed to create 17,000 new jobs in return (which, according to a recent analysis by The Christian Science Monitor, puts Puerto Rico third in the country behind Washington and Montana in terms of jobs created by the federal stimulus bill). Puerto Rico's unemployment rate—nearly 17 percent—is still staggeringly high. But Fortuño is effectively using Obama's bigger-government policies to move the commonwealth toward less bureaucracy, less spending, and more privatization. This is catnip for fiscal conservatives like Norquist.
Blessed with a Republican legislature, Fortuño stands a good chance of passing other conservative reforms as well—reforms that could "all of sudden" gain him a national Republican audience, according to Norquist. These might include a school-choice bill ("a third of the population goes to private schools already") and a push to lower the top tax rate from 33 percent to 20 percent ("everybody who used to retire to Miami would retire to Puerto Rico"). Given that Fortuño is young (49), telegenic, well-educated (Georgetown; UVA Law), fluently bilingual, and a proven winner on Democratic turf—he was elected last November by the largest margin in 44 years and is the first Republican governor of Puerto Rico since 1969—it's not hard to see why Norquist is crushing on him.
But ultimately, the most important thing about Fortuño may be that Norquist & Co. are mentioning his name at all—at least for now. Do I think a Puerto Rican will win the 2012 Republican nomination? Not really. And neither, I'm guessing, does Norquist. A party whose base is animated in part by its opposition to illegal immigration is probably not going to "import" someone, as it were, for the biggest job in the land. But in the age of Obama, the GOP is suffering from a serious dearth of credible minority leaders—people who can speak with authority to an increasingly multiethnic electorate. And the shortfall is especially glaring in regard to Latinos, who are the country's fastest-growing minority group (they represented 7.4 percent of the electorate in 2008, up from 6 percent in 2004 and 5.4 percent in 2000) but are trending heavily Democratic, despite their religious, family-first leanings (George W. Bush took 44 percent of the Latino vote in 2004 versus only 31 percent for John McCain in 2008).
This is where Fortuño comes in. For Republicans, using Fortuño to fuel the eternal flame of 2012 speculation serves to make the GOP seem, at least, like a more welcoming place for Latinos—however whimsical his chances of reaching the White House currently are. "Our party needs growth among minorities," said one Republican Governors Association official earlier this year. "Then along comes a young, well-spoken Puerto Rican governor, and we've got a person who can help our party articulate why Hispanics and Latinos should fit into the GOP." Which is why, regardless of electoral reality, you can expect to keep hearing Fortuño's name from folks like Norquist—for the next three years and beyond.
And who knows? One day, he may actually be a sure thing.

domingo, 15 de noviembre de 2009

23/sept/09
Global Research
by James Suggett
During a meeting with U.S. labor union leaders in New York on Wednesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez invited the unionists to participate in the fair trade integration bloc known as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and he invited U.S. President Barack Obama to hold a "peace dialogue."
"Groups of unions, groups of workers from the United States, could incorporate themselves into the ALBA, because the ALBA has a council of social movements in addition to its council of presidents," said Chavez in response to a participant who asked how U.S. and Latin American social movements could work together more.
The first such opportunity for U.S. labor leaders to participate could be in the ALBA meeting scheduled to take place on October 16-17th in Cochabamba, Bolivia, said the president.
"The ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance, is much more than an alliance of governments," the president explained. "We must fill it with people, from below, from the roots... because you are the ones who construct these alternatives."
The ALBA was created in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba to provide an organization for cooperation-based trade between countries as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated free trade agreements, and to promote regional integration on the basis of solidarity. The bloc now has nine members in South and Central America and the Caribbean.
Chavez, who was wearing a red and white striped tie and blue suit, told the U.S. unionists that Venezuela is not an enemy of the U.S., as the media portray it to be. "One thing is the empire and another is the people of the U.S.," he said. "We are enemies of imperialism, of hunger, of misery, of exploitation," said the leader of Venezuela's drive toward "21st Century Socialism."
Turning his comments to the U.S. government, Chavez said he hopes to have a positive relationship with the Obama administration, but that President Obama will have to assure that the actions his administration takes are in line with his call for "a new era of engagement" during a speech before the 64th U.N. General Assembly in New York this week.
"Sometimes one gets the sensation that there are two Obamas. One, who gave the speech, is good. The other makes decisions that are contradictory to his speech," said Chavez.
As an example, Chavez cited a recently signed deal to expand the presence of the U.S. military on seven Colombian bases. "If you promote peace, then why the seven military bases in Colombia?" he asked.
"Obama, Obama, wake up! Open your eyes!" Chavez exclaimed. "Don't send any more soldiers or war planes to Colombia, that is throwing gasoline on the fire, and that affects us all in South America... Let's talk about peace, let's set up a peace dialogue," he suggested.
"The world has begun to change, and the United States is part of the world, it cannot remain behind," Chavez said, emphasizing that he is optimistic that the 21st Century will bring substantial improvements and that "the process of building unity cannot be detained."
"In the first ten years of the 21st Century, we have been able to advance on what could not be achieved in the two hundred previous years," he said, mentioning as examples the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Bank of the South, and the Latin American television news station Telesur, in addition to the ALBA.
"The next ten years will be decisive," he said. "I feel optimistic, and I ask all of you to feel optimistic, but to struggle hard."This struggle includes that of Puerto Rico to become an independent republic, said the Venezuelan leader, after recognizing that September 23rd is the anniversary of the day when Puerto Rican leaders declared the island independent from Spain in 1868. "Who said history has ended? History has re-begun," Chavez said. "Someday, Puerto Rico should be a republic." His comments were followed by strong applause.Wednesday's event took place in the office of Venezuela's ambassadorship to the United Nations. The participants included labor leaders from the national and multi-national electricity, food, commercial, automobile, public, and university sectors, as well as organizers of African-American and Puerto Rican worker unions. Chavez also came to New York to address the 64th United Nations General Assembly meeting on Thursday.